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If you are like me then you love seeing a great Broadway show. With the lights, music, acting, costumes, and overall production it is a fun night where you can go with friends and immerse yourself into the show. But have you ever thought about the sustainability of producing these shows? Luckily we have the Broadway Green Alliance, which is an organization and initiative that “educates, motivates, and inspires the entire theatre community and its patrons to implement environmentally friendlier practices on Broadway and beyond” (Broadway Green Alliance).
The BGA offers reusable and recycling collections where they collect several different items that are used as props or costumes in shows that can be reused by other theatres and people can also donate personal unwanted items to these collection drives as well. They collect binders, vases, towels, linens, transit cards, clothing, instrument strings and several other items.
Broadway Green Alliance Collection Drive in Times Square
They also have “Green Captains” for the shows that can be anyone from any department and involvement in the show and there is at least one Green Captain for almost every current Broadway show. These people serve as a leader and someone who encourages and promotes environmentally friendly practices and focuses on sustainable ways to produce the broadway show. Additionally, Green Captains work alongside stage managers to focus on pre production needs of the show and create production-wide sustainability goals for the show, such as having at least 30% of the props reused or thrifted, etc. When these objectives are very upfront and clear with the entire production team it allows for a smoother run of the show and everyone to be aware of the shows sustainability goals. Additionally Broadway Green Alliance has partnerships with regional and college theaters that can sign up to be a part of the BGA and have a Green Captain. Furman Theatre Department is one of the colleges that is on this list and is a part of the program, aiming to have more sustainable theatrical practices (Green Captains). At Furman, a majority of the costumes are made by hand and as a part of a class students can take in the costume shop. Relating to actions we can take as individuals and living in the Eco Cottage it is something that I strive to do. I try to alter several of my clothing myself and if a piece of clothing rips, I fix the article of clothing myself or make something new out of the fabric. If not, it is important to donate extra clothing to local donation sites or clothing drives to ensure the clothing is being repurposed and not ending up in a landfill.
List of colleges that are on the Great Captain list, including Furman University.
Several shows have already started making amazing progress and changes after the establishment of BGA and having Green Captains working on their shows. Wicked is the first show that changed their mic packs to have rechargeable wireless batteries. Wicked saved approximately 15,800 batteries per year since making this change in their sound production 8 years ago; and it has inspired several other shows to follow in their steps (Broadway Green Alliance – Wicked) Wicked is now double the amount of green (with Elphaba working towards a greener future haha).
If you have ever been to a Broadway show you know that they always give you a playbill that has the cast list, bios and all the info about the show and are often kept afterwards as souvenirs. I personally have collected all my playbills since I was in elementary school and have a giant playbill binder with them all. However, some people might not care at all about the playbills and may trash the playbill after the show or just leave it on the floor of the theatre where it gets stepped on, damaged and has to be tossed out. Next time you see a show if you do not want to keep your playbill, recycle it at the lobby so they can reuse it for future runs of the shows. (Playbill Recycling) Some alternative solutions are to offer virtual playbills at all Broadway shows in addition to the physical copy so people have the option to choose which one they want to use. Additionally if there is an understudy or swing performing at the specific show you attend they have a slip of paper in the playbill noting the person who will be playing that role at your show. Stuffing over a thousand playbills with these slips of paper just for them to be tossed out and left all throughout the theatre also creates lots of excess paper and waste being used. A solution is to have a QR code in the playbill and in the lobby of the theatre that takes you to a website that is updated for every show to recognize the people filling in for that role at the show you attend. It is important to recognize everyone in the cast and crew but by offering virtual playbills and having this site available for attendees it can help limit the waste and production of Broadway playbills (Playbill). This same situation applies to regional, local, and school theatres as well. At Furman we have moved to using entirely digital playbills where you can scan the QR code in the lobby and it takes you to the online playbill.
Playbill from when I saw the Great Gatsby last year, one of the playbill inserts is seen in the photo as the small black piece of paper sticking out from the top of the playbill.
Resources
“Broadway Green Alliance.” https://www.broadwaygreen.com/about-us.
Paulson, Michael. “What Should I Do With My Playbill?” The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/theater/playbill-recycling-color.html